Scared
by Intricacy
Summary: Thursday announces a celebration for conclusion. Ginny writes a letter to the deceased Tom Riddle, and what she doesn't expect is a ready reply. Oneshot, TomGinny


**Scared**

ACK! Has it really been a whole **nine months** since I've last updated Final Riddles? Eep, I'm so sorry! T.T I'll try and get cracking on it once AP season is over… and hopefully my writer's block will end. The writing style here is significantly different – I think it's been influenced by all that stuff we have to do in English class which the teacher terms as _reading_, but hopefully you'll like it anyways.

This is for all you guys who have bugged me to update that fic. An appetizer of sorts. x) It came to me in some sort of half-dreaming half-conscious state. (Btw, I haven't reread this, because I'm feeling a bit tired and lazy right now. xD Just so you're warned. I might come back and repost it if it really is that horrible....) Enjoy anyways!

Disclaimer: dun own it.

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Thursday wafts a symbolic spirit into Ginny. Her fingers play at the eagle quill's fringe, a myriad of words dancing through her mind. This spring day declares the opportunity for settled closure, and she dashes her quill through chestnut ink before inscribing her thoughts onto scented parchment.

"_Tom:_" she begins with a falter. She isn't sure how to address him, and every possibility that flickers through her mind is determined as awkward. The wind gusts through her open window and slams her bedroom door shut, chiding her for her particular behavior. With a laugh, she admits her folly and ignores the dilemma of titles, continuing toward the body. First impressions have already been fixed, and she doesn't care.

_I would like to steal a glimmer out of time to step back and laugh at you, because there's nothing more you hate than to be mocked. It's why you strove to be feared. You see, I know you better than anyone, and therein have I been tortured. After all, one can't understand – or at the very least, realize – the magnitude of your corrupt insanity without losing a sense of self, but it's over now. Now, I laugh again – because your nightmares can haunt me no more._

_You can conjure all the horrors you'd like and placate yourself with them – memories of your diary; imaginings of what would have happened. Yet you cannot inspire me to fear you again, because really, you're not frightening. You're pathetic. And you're dead, though I don't take this little fact into as great of an account as the astounding truth of your miserable wretchedness._

_I wish I had known that as a first year. You are a cruel creature, you know that? To take advantage of an eleven-year-old girl with innumerable insecurities, but I thank you for your selfishness. In the end, you have strengthened me and weakened yourself – and now, let us take a moment's repose where I can laugh at you again for this irony._

_I admit that the aftereffects of the Chamber were initially traumatizing. I applaud you for your success in that manner. Who wouldn't be frightened, after one year's worth of fancies was instantly devoured in one night when confidant becomes murderer? But you're a shallow thing worth pitying. You don't deserve my pity, but I'll give it to you anyways, if only to spite you._

_Now for a change in direction: allow me to alleviate my conscience. Since you're dead – and no one can ever read this – I'll relieve that one secret etched into the frame of my heart by describing it here. In my first year, when you comforted me and reassured me about Harry, my feelings for him were gradually replaced by my feelings for you. It's despicable and still it sends my cheeks flaming as I write, but I had then thought you were everything I needed and wanted. I had then thought you were everything I hoped Harry to be. There was a period of time – I'm not sure if you recall – when I wrote only about Harry, and you responded only with consoling me. I hated it. I wanted you to be jealous and declare your undying love for me, but when you expressed nothing of the kind, it hurt me too much to continue, so I altogether stopped. God, I was stupid._

_To later realize that I had fallen in love (albeit a brief period of time) with the one they called the Dark Lord – I have only lately come to terms with it. It wasn't love, only inadvertent submission to your manipulation. A passing fancy. But I am nothing like what I was seven years ago, and I think you will be pleased to note that I am dating the one who triumphed over you._

_Because he is everything I need and want. He is everything I had then hoped him to be, and later hoped you to be. And not even, because he is more, as cliché as it is. Indescribable. I'm sorry you never had a chance to experience it._

_Whereas you… you're only a petulant boy, deluded to pursuing broken fragments of evil decorated in beauty to prove yourself to the world. Insecure. I'm sorry you never had a chance to break free. Or rather, I'm sorry you didn't, because you had plenty of chances to readjust yourself for a better avenue in life._

_And so I am brought back to my initial intentions: how can I fear someone who hasn't matured enough to comprehend love? How can I fear a mere child whose narrow sights restrict his capabilities to grow? No, you're an object begging for mercy. There's nothing to fear in that. Because I know you. I know you, and you're just as lost and helpless as anyone else in this world. You just have a different way of hiding it. A different way to be noticed – except you were too weak to resist the consequences of choosing power as an outlet. You were consumed, and now you're just a shell. A dead one._

_Try to scare me._

With a flourish, she signs her name: _Ginny_.

--

Her owl soars through the window and settles onto its perch with one well-practiced glide, a letter clamped within its beak. She frowns as she tugs at it, and with one glance, Ginny is met with her own name declared in spidery handwriting. Writing that she is too familiar with – writing she had spent all of her first year staring at.

Alarmed, her eyes immediately shoot up to catch that of her owl's, though it doesn't understand. It performed its master's command perfectly: "This is for Tom Marvolo Riddle. Don't return carrying this letter back to me." Her letter was gone; in its place –

Her breath hitches in her throat as she holds the letter out at arm's length. Impossible. Riddle died. Yet her insatiable curiosity leaps in a hurricane of flames within her, and without realizing her actions, her fingers slip beneath the envelope's flap and break the wax seal open. The upper right hand corner bears today's date.

_Dearest Ginny,_

_You infinitely please me at your acknowledgment of my existence, though you greet me without a title – or at the very least, an epithet. Only "Tom"? Am I only "Tom" to you? Oh, but I am not simply "Tom" to you – I am "Tom," plus a colon, apparently. Rest assured, your lack of compassion is not mirrored in me. To me, you are "Dearest Ginny," plus a comma._

_Regardless, I should ignore that you once called me "Oh, Tom," and correspond to your letter. I would like to steal a glimmer out of time to applaud you congratulations. You do know me. As you termed it so eloquently later, ah… "lost and helpless." I believe you have forgotten the word "confused" in your rant._

_If only you did know me, you would have reason to be frightened. You see, Ginny, there are three sides of me, two of which you know: the one you were acquainted with in the diary, and the one you were acquainted with in the battlefield. This third side is one that I have only ever revealed to myself, and belatedly at that – but for you, my phoenix, I will allow an exception._

_Desperate isn't reason enough to touch the road that I have draped around me. I accede that a part of me did yearn for recognition, but so do many others. You have forgotten two of my strongest traits: ambition and a lack of morals. It's a dangerous combination, Ginny, and you've seen the results. Couple it with anything – desire, jealousy, or mere curiosity – and then _you_ will accede that that man is to be feared._

_Allow me to temporarily divert myself (and skipping over your offer of pity, which I politely refuse). I don't believe you were ever stupid, Ginny. Silly, of course; deluded, perhaps; but never stupid. And if I had known your intentions those several years ago (and yes, my memory serves me well; after all, I was then _only_ a memory), I assure you that you never would have desired to return to Potter again._

_There never was such thing as "love as first sight," and whoever quoted it either forgot to retract that statement or died shortly after his proclamation. It might have then been a passing fancy, as yours for Potter is – but love, Ginny, I would experiment with for you._

_And that would contradict a reason for your apathy: how can you fear a man who cannot love? But I do. Incorporated into love by nature is desire, and desire coupled with ambition and a lack of morals codes caution. Does it sound familiar?_

_Are you scared, my little thestral?_

_Yours eternally,_

_Tom_

She can feel a pale, warm breath whispering on the nape of her neck, and she stiffens. Her chest constricts. Merlin, she can hardly breathe – but he was _dead_!! Dead! But this letter, it looked of him, it smelled of him, it sang of him – it was even dated to today's damn date.

Long fingers slip along the side of her arm, a ghost of a touch that shivers her. The breeze heaves into a strong wind and tears the letter from her hand, just as she begins to shriek and her eyes flicker closed. God damn, she was supposed to be _strong_, but still her knees are beginning to buckle beneath her as a wave sweeps around her, securing her in place –

Something inside her shatters.

She can hear nothing but the pounding of her heart, drumming a metronome's melody into her ears.

She can see nothing but black; feel nothing but the brush of a hand across her cheek.

Her eyes snap open.

"Ginny?"

She can't tell. She can't tell if she's woken to Harry or if she's woken to Tom.

And she's scared.

Because she doesn't know how she feels when his eyes lock on hers.

She's so damn scared.

--

Review please? (x


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